


Six Feet From Hindsight

by AshVee



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Gen, The Marauders - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-02
Updated: 2017-08-02
Packaged: 2018-12-10 06:48:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11686272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AshVee/pseuds/AshVee
Summary: The Marauders in their final moments and beyond.





	Six Feet From Hindsight

**Author's Note:**

> Something I wrote ages ago and did a bit of a polish to in bringing over from FF.net

Six Feet From Hindsight

James Potter

He stood in the living room, wand gripped hard in hand, weight balanced on his toes as he stared at the door, waiting for his world to end. He could hear Lily upstairs, hushing Harry, who cried out at the top of his tiny lungs. Children understood fear. 

He only had a moment, half a breath between one second and the next, to process, to know. He’d placed his trust in a boyhood friendship, and for that, his entire family was going to die. 

The door exploded inward, and in the vacuum of nothingness, he changed. In his mind, Lily and Harry were a beautiful package, separated out of his life and whisked away into another existence, one where he would not be meeting them. 

James Potter loved the Marauders since their inception, had stalwartly defended each of them through Hogwarts and beyond. As time passed and their interests parted, even back in school, he’d paid less and less attention to his friends. After graduation, he rarely saw Remus, and so very rarely saw Peter that he wasn’t sure he’d recognize the man he’d made his secret keeper. 

Yet…

James trusted him because of those early years, when they’d been as blood. He hated himself as the door splintered against the far wall. He laid the life of his family on an age old trust, a trust poorly placed. There was a spy in the Order, and it was so much easier to blame the people who were trying, just fucking trying, than it was to blame the obvious. It made him nauseous. 

Remus had been secretive, disappearing off to who knew where other than Albus, returning tired and quiet and battered. He returned each time less and less the boy they all knew. 

Sirius was volatile, so angry and unsteady that on occasion James—and he was willing to die for this sin alone—James thought it was Sirius, thought the man had been pushed past whatever mental barrier had kept his mind from being just like every other Black. Even when Sirius had come begging James to change his secret keeper to Peter, James had suspected. He’d thought, for the briefest of moments, that the dog animagus had wanted to get rid of one more of their old friends when he betrayed them to Voldemort.

The hauntingly pale figure stepped across the threshold in a swirl of black robes, wand out in front of him. At least, James thought, at least Voldemort had come for him personally. At least he could look at the face of Peter Pettigrew as he cowered behind a dark master and know. 

As the killing curse sang through his veins, James’s body crumpled. His soul shattered. His world faded to black, and his son’s silence deafened his ears. 

At least, he knew. 

 

Sirius Black

He was alive! 

Blood sang in his veins, propelling him onward. He’d his brother at his back, a Malfoy in front of him, dueling seemlessly as they always had. Sirius Black was well and truly himself again for the first time since…

A well placed Expelliarmus flew over his shoulder, knocking the wand away from the hand of Lucius Malfoy’s father. It skittered away into darkness, too far to see. Pride swelled in his stomach. He’d been the one to teach James that when they were small, hiding in Gryffindor Tower and practicing for secret wizarding duels. 

“Nice one, James.” The words came unbidden, and in the next moment, he was hexing Abraxas into that same, shadowy darkness. He turned toward James, childlike glee turning his lips up into a smile. His eyes flickered over James briefly before searching our Remus, making sure he was safe as well. 

Through the dark, he could make out a man he thought could be the werewolf, only he was far too old, grey at his temples and lines on his face that didn’t belong. As if sensing his distress, Remus’s heavy eyes met Sirius’s, and just like that, Sirius was whipping back around to James—to Harry. 

The boy heard him, surely enough, knew he loved him as he loved his father. Knew that some part of Sirius Black died the day James Potter met Tom Riddle in his living room. Knew that whatever was left was broken, shattered between two times and flickering in between without control. Devastation slowly colored the boy’s face, and in the next moment, the shout of a killing curse echoed in his ear. 

In the next moment, Sirius was stumbling backward, trying to force out the right name, the proper name. It never came. 

His eyes slid to Remus, beautiful, trustworthy Remus, who was already running toward Harry, toward Sirius’s godson, ready to keep him safe and whole where Sirius had failed. He felt the Veil before he died, knew it would pull him in. 

As his ghost flickered on the other side, he panicked.

James was running toward him, toward the Veil. Just as he’d done everything in life, James Potter was running brazen and unafraid into danger for Sirius Black and...he’d done it again. He only remembered a moment before he knew no more, and only then because Remus, the scarred, tormented, lonely Remus his childhood friend had become, had gripped James—Harry—hard around the middle and drug him away, tears in both of their eyes. 

On the other side, he knew no more. His vision fled him. His hearing faded to nothingness. The fractured mind of his that couldn’t separate best friend from godson mended itself. Guilt and self-loathing no longer the heavy chain of responsibility around his neck. 

Sirius Black was dead. 

 

Peter Pettigrew

The boy had to die. 

He simply had to, there was no other way around it, not if Peter wanted to live, not if he wanted to win. And he wanted to win, had to. Other options fled him so very long ago, when he’d made decisions that darkened his soul far more than the death of any mere boy.

The silver hand squeezed down, choking life from the soon-to-be-made corpse. The other fought with him weakly, all of the inexperience of youth clear in his scrabbling fingers, the fear in his eyes. Peter had known fear once, known that panic once, when he was so very—

He forced himself to concentrate on the silver hand, the one that was no flesh and blood, the one that could take the life of James Potter’s son without question or hesitation. 

Lily’s too, Peter was reminded as green eyes stared up at him. Lily Potter who was kind to him even when he was a coward and didn’t defend her from a group of Slytherins that pushed her down half a flight of stairs.

He looked away from those eyes, away from what he had to do. He’d made this bed all those years ago, when he’d first taken the mark, when he’d been alone and without his friends, too weak to stand for himself. Where had James Potter been then? 

James who had done nothing for him except to teach him how to hide, how to let someone else fight his battles? Loathing welled in him for a fraction of a moment before it was erased. James Potter protected him and called him friend, trusted him with his very life, even when he was a pudgy little nothing who didn’t know how to hold his wand properly. 

Hold his wand properly.

He looked down at the silver hand, his right hand, his wand hand, the one he’d given to Voldemort, the hand James steadied in duels. 

A new ire rose in the pit of his stomach, flooding him with self-hatred so strong he failed to notice the silver hand still. Beneath him was the last remnant of James and Lily Potter. Here was the godson of Sirius Black, who teased him mercilessly but defended him to blood and broken bone when anyone else dared. The last tie Remus—kind, gentle Remus, who took the time to explain Arthimacy and call to check on him long after Peter had stopped calling back—had to his past, his family. 

The hand closed around his own throat before he realized he’d released the boy. The weapon turned on its master because its master had turned upon it. His mind was lost to a different path, a different possibility, a world where Peter Pettigrew learned James Potter’s courage, Sirius Black’s loyalty, Lily Evan’s love, and Remus Lupin’s kind heart. 

Instead, he died with Peter Pettigrew’s unfailing ability to switch sides. He supposed, in the moment his life was snuffed from him, it wasn’t such a bad thing. 

 

Remus Lupin

Remus was a shadow on the field of battle. Too weak from months of transformations, fighting, casting charms and spells to protect Tonks and Teddy. Remus was a wraith of his former ability. 

He’d never been the best duelist growing up, never the most keen to know what would disabile and cause pain. He’d learned though, through the years, he’d become a great proficient. There had been distrust, suspicion, the missions Albus sent him on that no one was to speak about—the missions that meant piss-all in the end because Sirius hadn’t trusted him. James hadn’t trusted him. 

If anything, over the years, Remus learned to stifle the youthful idealism that had been strong in him. Killing curses fell from his lips, ones both mean to kill immediately and kill screaming. This was the monster he feared more than the wolf, this man molded from the body of a good boy and tempered with the death of his friends, core shaking betrayal, and the chill of the world.

No, he mused as he sent another curse at a turned Deatheater, it was not the wolf that made him flee from Tonks and Teddy. It was the man, a man who so desperately wanted to make the world right. 

There would be no such world. Not after everything. James and Lily were gone; their son would follow if they didn’t succeed. Sirius had been brought back a broken man, but Remus had held onto those jagged pieces until his fingers bled, hot and slick, and the last bits of that man slid away into the nothingness of the Vein. 

Another killing curse flew off of his tongue, silencing another battle cry in the confusion. In his mind, he was Sirius, free and natural. He was James, ruthless and keen minded. He was a younger man.

Remus couldn’t help but wonder what tides would have changed that day in the Department of Mysteries if James had been there, dueling along side them as they’d learned. 

The three of them might have stood on this field, as they were always meant to, as brothers, bathed in blood — their own, each others or their enemies — united as completely as they’d been so long ago. The war would have ended differently, he supposed. He would have surely ended differently— 

Remus Lupin did not think of himself in a world where James Potter lived. Dolohov’s curse did him one last favor as his knees hit the ground. It snuffed out the wolf. 

It snuffed out the man. 

 

The Marauders

James was alone for a long time, Lily a stalwart presence beside him, staring down into the ether that showed them the world of the living. She did not speak, her heart gone from her and down with their son. She was too focused on what they’d left behind. 

He stood alone in the darkness, watching. Waiting, too, though he knew not for what. He was younger than he’d been when he’d died, that much he’d discovered in the years he’d watched. He’d say he was no older than eighteen, but Lily, beside him, was as the day she’d died. 

He spent time wondering about that, simply because he had nothing else to occupy his mind in those quiet times where Harry slept or studied. 

After Sirius died, it took the man a long time to join him, fresh faced and no older than James, blinking owlishly before a wide smile split his lips into a dangerous grin. James loved that smile. It was the smile of Padfoot, and as they spoke, he realized Sirius Black, Prisoner of Azkaban, was still dead and gone. 

James would never be more grateful for anything in his afterlife. Except for, perhaps, the peace on Remus’s aged face when he joined them, older, but a brother still. 

Together, they watched Harry become an Auroror, get married, see the birth of his own childred. Lily slipped away first, walking into the darkness with a settled smile. Not long after, Tonks followed, the woman having showed up not a breath after Remus. 

In the darkness, movement was simple, but the three men were rooted, unsure of what called them away from the peace that waited for them. It came a long while after, in the form of a boy, no more than six, with his right arm severed below the elbow. 

He spoke shyly, hesitantly, but with a weight to his words that did not match his age. It was Remus who figured it out. He had always been the smart one, their Moony. 

“Peter,” he said simply, as the four of them sat around watching the world below. The boy tensed, staring resolutely down at his ruinous arm. There were not words among them for years in the real world, where time passed normally. It was Sirius, loyal to a fault Sirius, who broke their silence. 

“Why this form?” he demanded, those big, knowing eyes challenging. It was hard to hate a child for the sins he would commit in the future.

“I was innocent then,” the boy said finally, looking up over pudgy cheeks. “I didn’t need to hide behind any of you, yet. I didn’t even know any of you. This was before—”

“Then why the arm?” James asked, cutting off the tumbling words. They’d long ago come to understand that the form one took in the otherworld was symbolic, it meant a great deal more than they’d originally thought. 

“I lost it,” Peter said quietly, staring down at the missing hand. The muscles in his shoulder tensed and jumped, as if he was telling his missing limb to do something it simply could not. “When I didn’t...when I couldn’t…”

“Kill Harry,” Sirius spat. 

“It was important.” 

“Your blood arm wasn’t as important as my son!” James shouted, raging. He was so incensed, pacing back and forth, that he nearly missed the next words. 

“It was important I remember the last bit of strength I had turned that arm on me,” he said. In the silence that followed, none of them counted the minutes or hours or days or years that passed below. 

Slowly, and as one, the Marauders left the darkness of the otherworld behind.


End file.
